w seconds at a time, and consequently there is
nothing corresponding to the specialization of physical nerve-matter
into optic or auditory nerves, and so on. So that though the physical
eye or ear has undoubtedly always its counterpart of astral matter,
that particular fragment of astral matter is no more (and no less)
capable of responding to the vibrations which produce astral sight or
astral hearing than any other part of the vehicle.

It must never be forgotten that though we constantly have to speak of
"astral sight" or "astral hearing" in order to make ourselves
intelligible, all that we mean by those expressions is the faculty of
responding to such vibrations as convey to the man's consciousness,
when he is functioning in his astral body, information of the same
character as that conveyed to him by his eyes and ears while he is in
the physical body. But in the entirely different astral conditions,
specialized organs are not necessary for the attainment of this
result; there is matter in every part of the astral body which is
capable of such response, and consequently the man functioning in that
vehicle sees equally well objects behind him, beneath him, above him,
without needing to turn his head.

There is, however, another point which it would hardly be fair to
leave entirely out of account, and that is the question of the
_chakrams_ referred to above. Theosophical students are familiar with
the idea of the existence in both the astral and the etheric bodies of
man of certain centres of force which have to be vivified in turn by
the sacred serpent-fire as the man advances in evolution. Though these
cannot be described as organs in the ordinary sense of the word, since
it is not through them that the man sees or hears, as he does in
physical life through eyes and ears, yet it is apparently very largely
upon their vivification that the power of exercising these astral
senses depends, each of them as it is developed giving to the whole
astral body the power of response to a new set of vibrations.

Neither have these centres, however, any permanent collection of
astral matter connected with them. They are simply vortices in the
matter of the body--vortices through which all the particles pass in
turn--points, perhaps, at which the higher force from planes above
impinges upon the astral body. Even this description gives but a very
partial idea of their appearance, for they are in reality
four-dimensional vortices,